Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 50/65

so also God renders his surpassing glory more manifest, whenever he persuades some who have gone utterly astray, and who have been carried down to the very lowest depth of baseness and impiety, to swim back up and to return towards the desire for virtue, and to the wiping away of evil, and as it were to the putting on of things praiseworthy.

The Egyptians, therefore, and the marts of the Ethiopians, that is, the cities of the Thebans, on whose borders and near whose confines dwell those called Sabaim—that is, the peoples of the Ethiopians, or rather of the Indians (having perhaps received their name from Saba, who reigned at various times over their country and land)—they have laboured, he says.

And the phrase, They have laboured, is to be understood in two ways;

for either it means to signify that they had wearied unbearably, during the time of their wandering, being yoked under the cruel tyrant Satan, and serving the herds of the demons who demanded of them sacrifices, and even their own offspring, I mean sons and daughters;

or else that of old they were formidable and unbreakable, and as it were shield-bearers of the ancient deception, using all their strength to the end that they might cling vigorously to the Hellenic impiety set before them.

But when Christ shone forth, and sent up the true light into the hearts of all, and rose like a spiritual morning-star, they laboured—that is, they no longer remained resistant as before, but relaxed as it were from their former tension, yielding the victory to the proclamations concerning him; and the word concerning these things was in no way proved false.

For as the all-wise Paul writes:

Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. For the land of the Egyptians is seen to be full of venerable and holy churches.

Altars everywhere, and herds of monks, and swarms of virgins, and the labours of ascetic discipline with much gladness of soul, and a running towards virtue, and much eagerness, vigorous and not enduring to be cut short—and the worship of Christ

extends even as far as the Sabaim themselves, that is, the Indian nations.

For it is possible, yes possible, to see among those peoples as many things as also in Egypt and in the marts of Ethiopia, that is, in the land of the Thebans

—clearly, ministers of his will.

For this name of servitude, when applied to God, signifies this.

They shall follow after you bound with fetters.

For they shall walk in your footsteps, he says, being led by the hand by the evangelical laws in each of the things to be done, and they shall traverse the path of the excellent life bound with fetters, that is, with the bonds of love and the chains of unspeakable devotion to God, so as to be able to say:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? These, he says, shall bow down to you and shall pray in you, for God is in you, and there is no God besides you.

For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Saviour.

For to Christ the Saviour of all every knee bows, and every tongue confesses, and to him comes every fulfilment of prayer.

For in Christ we ask our petitions from God the Father, and in him we pray, confessing that in him also is God, and there is no God besides him.

For thus he taught us to think, saying to the divinely-inspired disciple (this was Philip):

Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known me, Philip? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? He who has seen me has seen the Father.

I and the Father are one. Therefore the phrase, God is in you, and there is no God besides you, has an equal force with, And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God. But if someone should wish skilfully to refer the force of what has been said even to the person of Christ alone, we say that, according to the voice of the divinely-inspired Paul, in Christ dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

But God himself was the same, not divided into two sons, but as the Word having the flesh as his own, in which he is also said to have dwelt.

Therefore in this one also God is understood to be, just as in a human body the soul;

yet nevertheless God is one Son.

It must, however, be known that we say the flesh of the Lord was ensouled with a rational soul.

They confess, then, that in you also is God, and there is no God besides you.

For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Saviour.

This is the voice of those who repent, and who are now passing over towards the light out of deception and darkness, and who have penetrated to the recognition of the truth, and have come to know the God who is by nature and in truth God, and the Maker and Lord of all things.

And they name him the Saviour of Israel—him who became man and was made flesh—having believed that he is that very one who also of old was a helper to those of Israel.

Or rather, by Israel you will understand not only him according to the flesh, but indeed also anyone else who is able to see God.

And he sees God with the eyes of the mind, who beholds the express image of God the Father, that is, the Son, before whom he says the adversaries shall be confounded and shall walk in shame.

For those who have not accepted faith in him, but have fought against God—as indeed the Jews also did—shall all be put to shame, being vanquished by the invincible hand, yet in no way at all wronging his glory, but having poured out destruction upon their own heads, they shall be for shame and reproach.

For they shall be for a spectacle to all flesh, according to the voice of the prophet.

Be renewed towards me, O islands.

Israel is saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation.

They shall not be ashamed, nor shall they be confounded for ever, says the Lord Almighty. Again he enlarges the foretelling of the calling and conversion of the nations;

and he does not stop only at the Egyptians and the marts of Ethiopia and the Sabaim themselves;

but he has shown clearly in these words that those also who are throughout all the earth shall be called, and that there shall be a manifestation of holy Churches everywhere.

For the all-powerful Word of God addressed as it were to the Churches the summons to be renewed towards him—which Churches indeed he also deems worthy to call islands.

ships in peril, and rescue them from the waves, stretching out to them a bay untroubled by the swell;

so also the Churches of Christ are set, as it were, in the very midst of the tumult and confusion of this life, and endure innumerable trials, yet they possess in Christ that which cannot be shaken.

And they take in as their dwellers those who flee from the affairs of this world, from its useless and empty turmoil, and who are, as it were, tempest-tossed by both Satan and sin.

They are therefore to be likened to islands.

For this is what the divine word means in these passages.

"Be renewed, then, unto me," He says, "O islands."

The name of the Church weaves together the multitude of those who have believed in Christ—priests and peoples, shepherds and teachers, and those set beneath their hand under the yoke—yet all these were made new in Christ, at those seasons, namely, in which God who is Lord shone upon us.

For then, yes then, we too were renewed unto newness of life, of character and of conduct, and moreover of worship.

For we have cast off the oldness that comes from sin, and have become a new creation in Christ, being trained by His laws toward a glorious and admirable manner of life.

And so the all-wise Paul writes to those who have been called through faith, saying at one time, "Put off the old man, with his sufferings and his lusts, and put on the new, who is renewed after the image of Him who created him"; and at another time again, "Be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." And he says that our old man has been crucified together with Him, so that we might put on the new through the manner of life and the living that is in Christ.

And we are renewed also in respect of the manner of worship—those of us, that is, who come from the Jewish orders, having abandoned shadows and types.

For they will no longer make use of ox-sacrifices and frankincense, but of that which is spiritual and immaterial, and as it were arranged in the rank of the most seemly incense-offerings;

and those who have been caught, as in a net, from the multitude of the nations will be transferred to what is better and incomparably superior.

For they will no longer hold the ancient darkness in their mind, but, having taken in the divine and spiritual light, they will be holy and true worshippers.

For they will cease from worshipping the creation and dumb, insensate matter;

and they will abstain from divinations and sorceries, and will purge away the discordant din of Hellenic buffoonery and the deceit of demons; and, in a word, having forsaken the more shameful things and returned from abominable pursuits, they will be established in the beauty of all virtue and become knowledgeable in the doctrines of the truth.

Our estate, then, is a renewal.

For the things that are in Christ are a new creation.

The God of all things promises, moreover, that everyone who is after the flesh—I mean, and who is reckoned among the children of Abraham by promise (for not all who are of Israel, these are Israel, but the children of the promise, these are reckoned as children)—He will save with an eternal salvation, and that they shall be far removed from shame and from confusion, and that continually.

For having stripped off in Christ the profane sin, and having loosed from ourselves the yoke of the devil's covetousness, and casting away together with these our corruptibility, and having put on incorruption, in these things we shall be for ever.

For sin shall no longer trample triumphantly over us;

nor again will Satan subject us to his former acts of greed;

and the power of death shall depart utterly, being trodden down in the age to come in Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father be the glory and the might, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages.

{Discourse III.} "Thus says the Lord who made the heaven: this is He who displayed the earth and made it; this is He who marked out its bounds."

"He did not make it in vain, but that it should be inhabited."

"I am the Lord, and there is none besides."

"I have not spoken in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth."

"I did not say to the seed of Jacob, Seek me in vain."

"and declaring the truth." Having proclaimed beforehand the arrival of Christ the Saviour of us all, and having marked out the season of salvation, in which all, forsaking the darkness of their ancient ignorance, would pass over to the light of the true knowledge of God, He here makes the necessary exhortation, setting before both Jews and Greeks the clear proofs by which they would know most plainly that He Himself is the God of all things and their Maker, and that there is no other besides Him.

"Thus says the Lord"—and not simply "Lord," for there are very many both in heaven and on earth who have obtained the name by a misuse of it;

but that One Himself who is by nature and in truth this very thing which He is also called, and who, from the things He has accomplished, possesses a glory that is no falsehood.

"For this is He," it says, "the Lord who made the heaven";

and it is a very great thing, for the demonstration of His supreme renown and His all-powerful pre-eminence, to have made the heaven and displayed the earth and established it.

For He Himself marked out its bounds; that is, though it was of old hidden in the deeps, invisible and unfurnished, He made it appear visible and wrought.

For He said, according to the testimony of the books of Moses:

"Let the water be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear." So then it appeared out of the waters; and though it was submerged and wholly unworkable, He separated it apart, setting bars and gates upon the deeps, and marking it off very carefully from the waters.

And that He brought it forth for this purpose usefully and necessarily—not merely that it might be seen, but that it might have inhabitants, namely, clearly, those formed from it—just as, indeed, He also plainly showed beforehand that He made the heaven for the holy angels, saying:

"He did not make it in vain, but that it should be inhabited."

So then it was shown to be a vehicle and, as it were, a house for those who tread upon it, that is, for us.

And if we were brought forth by Him into existence, how is it not true to say that in every way, and precisely for this reason, we came to be—that we might worship Him, and Him alone, and, acknowledging Him as the Author of the generation of all things, might offer up songs of thanksgiving? "I therefore am, and there is none besides." For if He Himself is the One who made the heaven and displayed the earth, and made it not in vain but to be inhabited;

who else could be conceived to be God besides Him? Or who could stand equal to Him in strength and glory? Or who at all could come near, or even close by a little? And how is not the whole nature of created things utterly surpassed by so great and all-transcending a glory, might, and wisdom? "There is none."

He alone, then, and none other at all besides Him, could be conceived to be God by nature and in truth.

But someone might perhaps say at some point:

Who has known the purpose that is in Him? Or who is able to declare whether He wishes to crown certain others also with the glory and calling of God, or Himself and Him alone? He makes His defence, then, and says:

"I have not spoken in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth;

I did not say to the seed of Jacob, Seek vain things."

"I appointed laws concerning these matters for them," He says, "not speaking in a hidden corner, nor taking pains to escape notice, but manifestly and openly."

For the Lord came down upon the mountain of Sinai in the form of fire;

there was thick darkness and tempest and smoke, and a piercing sound of trumpets.

For all the people stood by, with Moses acting as mediator, and laws were proclaimed by God—not enjoining upon Israel to seek anything vain, that is, an idol or a falsely-named object of reverence, but on the contrary, commandments that forbade such things.

"You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve, and there shall be no other gods for you besides me."

"And you shall not make for yourself an idol, nor any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth." Therefore it was said to him:

and the phrase "I am the Lord" is like as if He were saying—and not once, but many times—that "I alone am God, and Lord of all things, speaking righteousness and declaring truth";

and by "righteousness," as I think, He means the Law;

for the Law is the arbiter of righteousness;

and by "truth," the teachings of Christ.

But in the Law there is the form of the truth, and the mystery of Christ is hidden in the shadows.

For concerning Him Moses has written.

Therefore, in the speaking of righteousness, there is proclaimed together with it the power of the truth as well, if indeed it is true that the Law was a shadow, but now in it is the form of the truth.

"Gather yourselves together, and come; take counsel together, you who are being saved from among the nations."

"They have no knowledge, they who lift up the wood of their carved image, and pray to gods who cannot save." The apostate dragon lured away from the intimate relationship with God those who were upon the earth, and, having despoiled them of the true knowledge of God, scattered them into deceit and into the polytheistic error, and, casting them down into the ways of vileness, made the net of his own perversity for them hard to escape and impossible to get out of.

But Emmanuel appeared, who leads out with valour those who were fettered, and He endured for our sake death according to the flesh, in order that, as the evangelist says, He might gather into one the scattered children of God.

For the things which Satan, springing upon them like a savage and wild wolf, had scattered, these Christ the good Shepherd gathered together, He who laid down His own life for the sheep.

Therefore He signifies this very thing, saying:

"Gather yourselves together"—that is, be bound together in one faith and in oneness of soul.

Gather yourselves together unto God who rules over all, through sanctification and righteousness;

come near, you who are still far off and fenced away because of sin, and because of having been brought down into a most shameful and abominable disposition of mind.

And we say that those who have gone astray have departed from God, who yet shall be near through faith in Christ.

The all-wise Paul, accordingly, has addressed those who have run to this:

"But now you who once were far off have been made near in the blood of Christ." And again concerning Him, that "He came and preached the gospel of peace to us who were far off, and to those who were near." For this very reason it was said through the holy prophets to those still far off:

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Come now, therefore, He says, and take counsel together, you who are being saved from among the nations.

The phrase 'take counsel,' He says, is used in the sense of: Let the things pertaining to your conversion to God be carried out by you, not thoughtlessly or heedlessly, but with an admirable prudence.

Take counsel, then; that is to say, exercise prudence, you who are being saved from among the nations.

For as though they were full of folly He commands them to depart toward a prudent mind, to an understanding admirable and beyond reproach, through which one might come to behold the power and glory of God who rules over all.

But they did not know this, He says; that is, they might be reckoned utterly senseless, and filled with the uttermost want of understanding.

Those who lift up the carved image of wood, their own handiwork.

Here 'lifting up' is used in the sense of exalting in their notions, so as even to ascribe to it the glory befitting God—to this piece of wood, and one carved by their very own hands.

Then, praying to them as though to gods who do not save.

They are therefore ignorant, and, as regards insensibility, not far removed from the things they worship—they who worship their own crafts, and seek help from senseless matter, and assign the invocation of God to things fashioned and wrought by their own hands.

Let them hear the lyre of the Psalmist mocking them and crying out:

Let those who make them become like unto them, and all who trust in them. If they will declare it, let them draw near, that they may know together who from the beginning made these things to be heard.

I am God, and there is no other besides Me;

a righteous One and a Saviour, there is none apart from Me.

the demons, who impiously plundered the glory of the Godhead and fastened it upon their own heads, in their utter recklessness were zealous to set up workshops of their own deceit.

And pretending to know things to come, and to be able to announce them to those willing to learn, they have gone on for a time snatching away their prey.

So there were oracles throughout the countries and cities, and false prophecies everywhere, and divinations by omens, and a multitude of impostors speaking from their own heart, according to what is written—chanters of oracles, and necromancers, and those who make sounds from the earth, ventriloquists and diviners by barley-meal; and, in a word, the whole earth beneath the sun was filled with liars and cheats.

There was then among them no true knowledge whatever of things to come, but only lyings and buffoonery and deceit and guile, and nothing else.

Wherefore the God of all things says:

If they will declare it, let them draw near, that they may know together.

For if they are able, He says, to announce it, let them come that they may know together, so that all of them, gathered face to face into one—(for there were, as I said, oracles in many places, one here and one there)—

and different men resorted to them in different ways, and honoured the unclean demons that spoke falsely—

but if they can truly declare it, He says, when they have all come together at one and the same time, let them make known something of things to come—who from the beginning made these things to be heard.

For which of the superstitious, or of the prophets among them, or of those who sat by the oracles, ever knew and announced that in due time Christ would shine upon the world, and that the cloud of deceit would depart, and the darkness of falsely-named knowledge would be scattered, and that there would dawn upon those on the earth—as a spiritual morning-star, as radiance and day, as the Sun of righteousness—Christ? But neither, He says, did the demons who feigned to possess the knowledge of things to come announce these things from the beginning, nor indeed did the ministers of their lying speech.

For none of the poets or chroniclers among the Greeks made mention of such illustrious matters.

Who then made these things to be heard from the beginning? Then also it was announced to you, that is, from the beginning.

And it was announced not by any other, but rather by Me who know all things and who foretold them before they came to pass.

For I spoke these things to you through Moses and the holy prophets, who conveyed to you the words that came from Me.

Therefore I am, He says, God, and there is no other besides Me.

And I am righteous, and a Saviour.

For unrighteous are the wicked demons, being also destroyers and lovers of blood, and thrusting down to ruin those upon the earth.

Turn to Me, and you shall be saved, you who are at the ends of the earth.

In these words one may very well behold the greatness of the grace that is through Christ, reaching to all who are upon the earth.

For the grace and salvation that came through Moses was confined, going out to one nation, Israel;

but that which is through Christ runs afar, even to the ends of the earth.

For through faith in Him the whole earth has been gathered as in a net unto salvation and life.

I am God, and there is no other;

if righteousness shall not go forth from My mouth—My words shall not turn back;

for to Me shall every knee bow, and every tongue shall swear by God, saying:

Wherefore, and very fittingly, after so profitable and beneficial an exhortation, He sets forth His own glory made manifest.

For I am God, He says, and there is no other.

there is the grace in Christ granted through faith to those throughout all that is under heaven, and His words—that is to say, the evangelical and saving proclamation—shall wholly and altogether shine forth in due time.

For this, I think, is what is made plain by the phrase, 'They shall not turn back.'

For when God promises, and says that something shall wholly and altogether come to pass, who is able to hinder it? He therefore swears by Himself.

For men swear by one greater than themselves, and the oath is for them the end of all dispute, unto confirmation.

But God, who is beyond all things and exalted above the rest by incomparable pre-eminence, swears by Himself.

For it was not possible for Him to swear by another, since He is, as I said, the highest of all, and that which stands at the utmost limit, both in nature and in glory.

What then is that which is promised? The salvation and conversion of every nation upon the earth.

For to Me, He says, shall every knee bow, and every tongue shall swear by God.

And as for 'The knee shall bow to God,' and 'His name shall become an oath among all men'—what else could this be understood to mean than that there is a conversion of all, and a recognition, and a manifestation of intimate belonging to Him? For those who altogether come by conversion to God utterly cease both from bowing the knee to unclean spirits and from holding these to be gods upon their tongue (for they will not swear by any of them as by God), but knowing the one who by nature and truly is, they submit their neck to His yoke and bend the knee, offering their supplications; and if ever they should choose to swear rightly, they will make mention of Him and Him alone, saying that all righteousness and all glory shall come unto Him—that is, that these befit Him and Him alone.

All those who separate themselves from the Lord shall be put to shame;

they shall be justified, and in God all the seed of the sons of Israel shall be glorified. What is said is true in both respects, and the divine word can in no way prove false.

For upon those who choose to depart from the intimate belonging to God—clearly the spiritual belonging—there shall wholly follow the necessity of being put to shame;

but to be received unto being glorified in Him, and to be distinguished in righteousness, belongs to those who love Him from a sincere heart.

And these would by no means be altogether Israel according to the flesh, but rather the seed of the sons of Israel.

And making the sense of what lies before us clearer, we say this.

For upon those on the earth there shone the Only-begotten Word of God, in the form that is according to us, that is, having become flesh, according to the Scriptures;

and He came proclaiming release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, sending forth the broken in release, and healing those who were crushed in heart, and calling out an acceptable year of the Lord.

But although it especially behoved the Jews to receive faith in Him, inasmuch as they had received the Law as a tutor and the holy prophets as those who initiated them into the mysteries, this they did not do, but leapt away as it were from Him, and became full of confusion, having the sin that shames them as something that cannot be cast off.

It is true, then, that All those who separate themselves from the Lord shall be put to shame.

For they heard Him saying:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins. But those who have recognized His appearing have been justified through faith, and have gained an abundant and unending glory, being shown to be partakers of the Holy Spirit, and made rich with the splendid dignity of adoption as sons.

for they shall inherit the kingdom of the heavens.

And these would be understood as the seed of the sons of Israel.

And by the sons of Israel in these words we say are named the holy apostles and evangelists;

for they were according to the flesh from among the Jews.

And by their sons, those who through them were called to the knowledge of Christ.

The all-wise Paul accordingly addressed those who through him had believed:

though you have ten thousand tutors in the Lord, yet you have not many fathers.

For in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begot you. And we find in very many places others also of the holy apostles calling those whom they had gathered as in a net unto the salvation which is in Christ their 'little children.'

And the achievement most excellent of all was that Satan should be removed out of the way, together with the profane and man-slaying multitude.

When, therefore, He shone forth upon the world, there was dissolved that ancient, dense, and accursed mist of sin which Satan had cast into the minds of all, that they might not behold the light of the truth.

The tyranny of the demons was also brought to an end, together with the follies of idolatry.

Necessarily, then, as I have said, the discourse concerning these matters has been introduced to us, and it says that Bel has fallen.

This was an idol especially of the Babylonians, though it was honoured also in other cities.

And they say that Bel is the one whom the godless Greeks tell of in their myths as Cronos, whom they also say was savage and blood-loving and a lover of slaughtering men.

It is recorded, at any rate, in the Greek histories that on a single day certain men slaughtered three hundred strangers to him, thus completing a festival abominable and hateful to God and to men.

And so the God of all, being indignant at such dreadful acts of impiety, speaks somewhere through one of the holy prophets to those accustomed to do such things:

For to such a degree of misanthropy and savagery, it says, did the unclean demons descend, that they even thirsted insatiably for human blood and took delight in the destruction of those who were taken captive.

For it seems that the calf lowing upon the altar, and the frankincense and the sheep, did not please them as much;